
Miracles, Mysteries & Medicine in Jade, Clive
Imagine you are a physician in Jade, Clive, Iowa. You have spent a decade in training, mastered the complexities of human biology, and built your career on the bedrock of scientific evidence. Then one night, standing at a patient's bedside, you witness something that makes you question everything you thought you knew. This is the experience shared by physician after physician in Dr. Scott Kolbaba's Physicians' Untold Stories. The book is remarkable not for its conclusions — it draws none — but for its honesty. These are medical professionals recounting what they saw, heard, and felt, trusting readers to weigh the evidence for themselves. For the community of Jade, Clive, these stories offer a rare gift: the permission to believe that the universe may be more compassionate than we dared to hope.

About the Author
Dr. Scott J. Kolbaba, MD is an internist at Northwestern Medicine in Wheaton, Illinois. He interviewed more than 200 physicians about their most extraordinary experiences.

Physicians' Untold Stories
by Scott J. Kolbaba, MD • 4.5 stars (1018 reviews)
Miraculous experiences doctors are hesitant to share with their patients, or ANYONE!
Order on Amazon →"Chicken Soup for Doctor's Souls." — Mary Ellen M.
Medical Fact
The average medical student accumulates $200,000-$300,000 in student loan debt by the time they begin practicing.
Physician Burnout & Wellness Near Jade, Clive
Physicians practicing in Jade, Clive, Iowa work at the intersection of modern medicine and experiences that resist explanation. In conversations that rarely leave the break room or the on-call suite, doctors in and around Jade, Clive have reported encounters with phenomena that their training never prepared them for — from patients who describe verifiable details about events that occurred while they were clinically dead, to deathbed visions shared simultaneously by multiple family members, to recoveries that defy every prognostic model available.
The medical community in Jade, Clive includes physicians across every stage of their careers — residents navigating the exhaustion of training, mid-career practitioners balancing clinical demands with family life, and veteran physicians carrying decades of experiences that challenge the boundaries of conventional medicine. Burnout touches all of them differently, but a common thread runs through: the desire to remember why they chose medicine in the first place, and the rare but profound moments that remind them.
Physician Burnout by Specialty
Percentage reporting at least one symptom (Medscape, 2024)
Medical Fact
An adult human body produces approximately 3.8 million cells every second.
Faith, Medicine & the Unexplained in Jade, Clive, Iowa
The Midwest's tradition of saying grace over hospital meals near Jade, Clive, Iowa seems trivial until you consider its cumulative effect. Three times a day, a patient pauses to acknowledge gratitude, connection, and hope. Over a week-long hospital stay, that's twenty-one moments of spiritual centering—a dosing schedule more frequent than most medications. Grace is medicine administered at meal intervals.
The Midwest's German Baptist Brethren communities near Jade, Clive, Iowa practice anointing of the sick with oil as described in the Epistle of James—a ritual that combines confession, communal prayer, and physical touch in a healing ceremony that predates modern medicine by two millennia. Physicians who witness this anointing observe its effects: reduced anxiety, improved pain tolerance, and a peace that medical interventions alone cannot produce.
Medical Fact
A human sneeze can produce a force of up to 1 g and temporarily stops the heart rhythm — the origin of saying "bless you."
Ghost Stories and the Supernatural Near Jade, Clive, Iowa
The Midwest's tornado shelters—often the basements of hospitals near Jade, Clive, Iowa—are settings for ghost stories that combine claustrophobia with the supernatural. During tornado warnings, staff and patients crowded into basement corridors have reported encountering people who weren't on the census—figures in outdated clothing who knew the building's layout perfectly and guided groups to the safest locations before disappearing when the all-clear sounded.
Grain elevator explosions, a uniquely Midwestern industrial disaster, have created hospital ghosts near Jade, Clive, Iowa whose appearance is unmistakable: figures coated in fine dust, moving through burn units with an urgency that suggests they don't know the explosion is over. These industrial ghosts reflect the Midwest's blue-collar character—even in death, they're trying to get back to work.
Did You Know?
Hospitals produce an average of 29 pounds of waste per patient per day — making healthcare one of the most waste-intensive industries.
Near-Death Experiences Reported by Physicians Near Jade, Clive
Midwest physicians near Jade, Clive, Iowa who've had their own NDEs—during cardiac events, surgical complications, or accidents—describe a professional transformation that the research literature calls 'the experiencer physician effect.' These doctors become more patient-centered, more comfortable with ambiguity, and more willing to sit with dying patients. Their NDE doesn't make them less scientific; it makes them more fully human.
Midwest emergency medical services near Jade, Clive, Iowa cover vast rural distances, and the extended transport times create conditions where NDEs may be more likely. A patient in cardiac arrest who receives CPR in a cornfield for forty-five minutes before reaching the hospital has a different experience than one who arrests in an urban ED. The temporal spaciousness of rural resuscitation may allow NDE phenomena to develop more fully.
Near-Death Experience Features
Percentage reporting each feature (van Lommel et al., 2001)
Did You Know?
The human tongue has about 10,000 taste buds, each containing 50-100 taste receptor cells.
Watch Dr. Kolbaba Share These Stories
Did You Know?
Dr. Kolbaba has noted that the book's most skeptical readers often become its strongest advocates after finishing it.
Medical Heritage in Iowa
Iowa's medical history is distinguished by the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City, the largest university-owned teaching hospital in the United States. Founded in 1898, it became a pioneer in numerous fields: Dr. Arthur Steindler developed innovations in orthopedic surgery in the early 20th century, and the hospital performed the first successful bone marrow transplant for a genetic disease (severe combined immunodeficiency) in 1968 under Dr. Robert Good. The university's College of Medicine, established in 1870, trained generations of rural physicians who served Iowa's farming communities.
The Iowa Methodist Medical Center (now UnityPoint Health) in Des Moines and Mercy Medical Center (now MercyOne) served as the capital city's major hospitals. Iowa's contributions to public health include Dr. Norman Borlaug, a University of Minnesota graduate raised on an Iowa farm, whose Green Revolution agricultural research saved an estimated billion lives from famine. The state's rural character drove innovations in telemedicine, with the University of Iowa pioneering remote consultation programs for farmers and small-town residents hundreds of miles from specialists. Iowa was also notable for its progressive mental health reforms, with the Mount Pleasant State Hospital (1861) among the earliest state-funded psychiatric facilities in the Midwest.
About the Book
The book's physician contributors come from across the United States, representing both academic and community medical settings.
Supernatural Folklore and Ghost Traditions in Iowa
Iowa's supernatural folklore reflects its agricultural landscape and the isolation of its rural communities. The Villisca Ax Murder House in Villisca, where eight people—including six children—were bludgeoned to death in their beds on June 10, 1912, is one of the most haunted sites in the Midwest. The crime was never solved, and overnight visitors report the sound of children's voices, falling objects, and a heavy, oppressive atmosphere in the upstairs bedrooms. Paranormal investigators have captured EVPs (electronic voice phenomena) in the home.
The Stony Hollow Road near Burlington, Iowa is haunted by 'Lucinda,' a woman reportedly murdered on her wedding night in the 19th century, whose screams are said to echo through the hollow. The Edinburgh Manor near Scotch Grove, a former county poor farm and mental health facility operating from 1850 to 2010, has become one of Iowa's most investigated haunted locations, with reports of a shadowy entity known as 'The Joker' and the ghost of a patient who died in the swing set area. In Dubuque, the Hotel Julien, which dates to 1839 and hosted Al Capone, is reportedly haunted by his ghost and that of a woman who died under mysterious circumstances on the third floor.
About the Book
The book touches on philosophical questions about consciousness, the soul, and whether medicine and spirituality can coexist.
Haunted Hospitals and Medical Landmarks in Iowa
Old Mount Pleasant State Hospital (Mount Pleasant): One of Iowa's earliest psychiatric facilities, established in 1861, this hospital treated Civil War veterans suffering from what would now be called PTSD. The old Kirkbride building, with its distinctive center tower, is said to be haunted by patients and staff from its earliest days. Night workers have reported a man in Civil War-era clothing pacing the halls and the faint sound of a bugle call at dawn.
Edinburgh Manor (Scotch Grove): Operating as a county poor farm and mental health facility from 1850 to 2010, Edinburgh Manor housed the indigent, mentally ill, and elderly for 160 years. Over 100 people died on the property. Now open for paranormal investigations, visitors report being touched by unseen hands, hearing voices calling names, and encountering an aggressive entity nicknamed 'The Joker' in the basement. Shadow figures are frequently seen in the long corridors between the dormitory rooms.
Types of Phenomena in the Book
Distribution across 26 physician accounts
Research Finding
Reflective writing by physicians improves their emotional processing of difficult cases and reduces compassion fatigue.
How This Book Can Help You
Iowa's medical culture, centered on the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics—the largest university-owned teaching hospital in America—is characterized by the kind of dedicated, unpretentious physicians who populate Physicians' Untold Stories. The state's rural physicians, who often serve as the sole doctor for entire communities, develop the deep patient relationships that make encountering the unexplainable particularly profound. Dr. Kolbaba's Midwestern practice sensibility mirrors that of Iowa's medical community, where physicians carry both scientific training and the practical humility that comes from serving communities where faith, family, and farming shape every aspect of life, including how people experience illness, healing, and death.
Book clubs in Midwest communities near Jade, Clive, Iowa that choose this book will find it generates conversation across the usual social boundaries. The farmer and the professor, the nurse and the pastor, the skeptic and the believer—all find points of entry into a discussion that is ultimately about the most fundamental question any community faces: what happens when we die?

Research Finding
Hydrotherapy — therapeutic use of water — reduces pain and improves function in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
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Discover the Stories Medicine Never Says Out Loud
Physicians' Untold Stories by Scott J. Kolbaba, MD — 4.5 stars from 1018 readers.
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